Wireless communication networks are widely deployed to provide various communication services such as telephony, video, data, messaging, broadcasts, and so on. Such networks, which are usually multiple access networks, support communications for multiple users by sharing the available network resources. As demand for mobile broadband access continues to increase, research and development continue to advance 3G technologies not only to meet the growing demand for mobile broadband access, but to advance and enhance the user experience with mobile communications.
As networks become denser and interference limited, gains from interference suppression can be significant. Additional receive chains and the additional baseband processing needed for full equalization, however, will increase power consumption. If the data activity is very infrequent, enabling diversity chains during periods where there are no or few packets to be demodulated is particularly wasteful and drains limited power resources.